What do you stand for?

Last Wednesday was undoubtedly my busiest day in a long time. With a month of preparation, dozens of meetings, collaboration with tons of other clubs on campus, hours of decoration and many volunteers later...we successfully created awareness about extreme poverty!!

Oct 17th was a very important day in terms of anti-poverty activism. October 17th is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

If you go to the University of Windsor you probably noticed that almost all of the campus was decorated in white. You may have noticed lots of people were dressed in white too. (In the picture to the left are (left to right) Robin, Eric, myself, and Holly. Dressed in white and ready to fight poverty.)

So why all the white?

White shows the commitment to abolishing poverty. As I mentioned in one of my earlier posts the White Band is a popular white symbol to show people who are fighting against poverty.

The theme for the day at U Windsor (and hundred of locations worldwide) was STAND UP + SPEAK OUT. People stood up against poverty, gender inequality, lack of generic pharmaceuticals, hunger, and preventable illness. They spoke out to their government to get them to take action and keep the promises they made to alleviate poverty. Make our governments people of actions and not words!

The website gives the following reasons to Stand Up:

"In 2000, leaders of 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals, a global plan to halve poverty by 2015. 50,000 people die as a result of extreme poverty and the gap between the rich and poor is getting wider. We need you to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT to make governments honour their promises.

The promise to end poverty inequality and hunger. The promise to stop children dying from preventable diseases. The promise to ensure basic education for all children, particularly girls. The promise to stop women dying during pregnancy and childbirth. The promise to provide water and sanitation and to protect the environment.

And we need you to STAND UP and SPEAK OUT to make governments honour their commitments on more and better aid, debt cancellation, trade justice, gender equality and public accountability. It will not happen without all of us taking a stand."

Activities on campus included standing for one minute to show a commitment to stand up against poverty while a pledge was read aloud. It is a symbolic action to represent the larger actions we can take as a community to work together towards the social injustice of poverty. 2500 people on the Windsor campus stood up against poverty. There were also booths in the CAW quad to let people know what University based organisations/clubs are doing and how they can help.

OPIRG had a display on fair trade. Oxfam focused on clean water. EWB (Engineers Without Borders) focused on appropriate access to technology and how it can alleviate poverty and provide opportunity.

One of the goals of Stand up + Speak Out was to break last years record of 23.5 million people who stood for one minute.

This year over 38.8 million people, in 110 countries have broken the Guinness World Record for the largest number of people to “STAND UP AGAINST POVERTY” in 24 hours.

That's pretty exciting.

A big question is...how do we take further actions to stand up against poverty year long? It's great for people to get together on one day but it's even more important we continue the trend.

Buy fair trade, write to your Member of Parliament or a member in the Cabinet letting them know you want them to take pro-poor actions, be informed on what's going on in the world, don't waste food or water, donate your time (or money) to an organisation and help out with their events.

Stand up for equality, justice, hope, and opportunity- for everyone- everyday and in what you do. You don't have to save the world, but there are small, very tangible, actions we can take at home. Ignorance is not an excuse.

"Activism is my rent for living on this planet"
- Alice Walker